Friday, March 31, 2017

Friday, April 7th- Autism Awareness Day- In support of Autism Awareness Month, the students at Pine Glen are welcome to wear the color blue to school! A $1 donation is welcome and the Student Council will make a donation to Autism Speaks.

The students in Room 101 have been working on our persuasive writing unit. Students know that a persuasive document must introduce you to what they want, have some reasons or evidence and give a strong directive or request.

Our class is learning that writers often need to take a bit of time to fine tune their thoughts and work through the mechanics of getting it just right! We discuss our ideas, brainstorm, and reflect throughout the process.

Over the past few weeks we have made persuasive posters that are hanging in front of our classroom now and will be sent home soon to encourage others to read our favorite books. We then turned the information in our posters into video statements with the help of Ms. Small and Mr. Donoff. We also persuaded a leprechaun named Liam to hide his treasure in our classroom. Next week we will be working on letters to Ms. Pavlicek of the science center. We will be trying to persuade her that we would be able to take care of a new pet in our classroom and have a new pet visit our classroom.

We are in the process of finishing up our persuasive writing unit. We hope we can persuade you to check out the books we recommend! Thank you to Mr. Donoff and Ms. Small of the Pine Glen Library and Technology Center for helping us complete this project!

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

We had a wonderful field trip to the New England Aquarium today. The students have spent the last month learning about sea creatures and fish. It was a rewarding experience watching the students see and touch and describe so many of the animals we have learned about. We also wanted to thank the Pine Glen PTO for the awesome field trip t-shirts. We weren't hard to miss in our neon green t-shirts.

This Thursday, March 30th at 6:00 p.m., the Burlington High School Guidance Department will sponsor an Early College Planning Seminar for parents in grades K through 8. A representative from the Massachusetts Educational Financial Authority (MEFA) will discuss saving for college, including specific ways to do so and how this relates to financial aid. We look forward to see you at the Burlington High School Auditorium.

Monday, March 27, 2017

Mr. Musselman of the Science Center was in to share his Superfish presentation today. Our kindergarten marine biologist students learned about vertebrates and invertebrates, covering many of the creatures we expect to see when we visit the aquarium next week!

The first creature comes from an unexpected animal family for the aquarium, the bird family! We learned about penguins. They have beaks and feathers and can be many sizes.

Then we explored invertebrates, particularly the mollusks. We noted their exoskeletons and discovered other commonalities. We learned that each of the ones we talked about are filter feeders. The oyster lives in the tide pools and eat algae. The clams live in the sand of the beach and use their strong muscle (like a tongue) to burrow in the sand for safety from the birds. We also witnessed scallops and mussels, Mr. Musselman's favorite!

We also learned about sea stars and the strong suction they have to open the bi-valve animals when they eat. The lobsters have very large strong claws to help them eat!

Students impressed Mr. Musselman as they directed him as he assembled is superfish model We knew the many parts of the fish!

Finally we observed a very smart creature, the octopus! Like the sea star he uses very strong suction cups that are along its tentacles. The octopus can outsmart it's prey by changing its colors to lure prey towards it or scare away a predator. Finally, they may squirt their ink out to scare away or or confuse other creatures. The New England Aquarium octopus is so clever, he has even been caught trying to escape, or grab a snack in the neighboring tank!

During the month of March we have focused on two science themes. We have been learning about fish and other creatures that live in the sea. We created our own books about the sea creatures, a tidal pool booklet, and we created diagrams of fish. We have explored Mrs. Parnell's shell collection and we have watched many you tube videos about sea creatures and we have visited the New England Aquarium website to get us ready for our field trip. We are all very excited about the trip!

Our second theme this month was on magnets. The students learned that magnets have a north and south pole, opposite poles attract (stick or pull together) and like poles repel (push apart). The students learned that some metals stick to magnets and others do not stick to the magnet. Another fact they learned his that magnets come in many different shapes and sizes and the biggest magnet is the Earth! The students enjoyed using the Science Centers testing kits to categorize magnetic items and non magnetic items. We look forward to Mr. Musselman coming back next month to do the Magnet Show for us.

We have been learning about the teen numbers in school. The students have been ordering the numbers along with the ten frames that match the number. We are creating a teen number book and Topic 9 in our enVision Math program focuses on the teen numbers. We are becoming teen number experts.

We have been singing along with Dr. Jean and her Singing Number Words song. We take turns listening to the song and raising cards that correspond to the numbers being sung. (The cards consist of numbers, number words, tally marks and ten frames with bugs in them). If the student does not have the number word being sung they put up that number of fingers to sing and participate. Numeral word quiz is this Thursday, March 30th.